Soon, you'll be able to manage Windows driver and firmware updates in Microsoft Intune!
Looking for a better way to manage driver and firmware updates? If you've ever had to research and download appropriate drivers, repackage them, and deploy them using generic tools, that's changing for the best.
Built on the Windows Update for Business deployment service public preview—available with Windows Enterprise—driver update management policies and reports will soon be available in Microsoft Intune.
Why manage driver and firmware updates in Intune
This enables you to take advantage of intelligent servicing, trusted quality, granular controls, optional drivers and firmware update management, detailed reporting, and integration with Windows Autopatch!
Intelligent servicing
Use the Windows Update intelligence in the cloud to identify which driver updates are available for each device. Microsoft does the work of finding the right drivers for your devices in the policy and provides the list of available updates. If you're an Intune administrator, just browse the list and choose which drivers to deploy.
Trusted quality
Trust drivers published to Windows Update after close collaboration between Microsoft and many device manufacturers, including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and independent hardware vendors (IHVs). Drivers are certified and validated through a dedicated pipeline before they are published to Windows Update.
More granular controls
Control which drivers are deployed and when they are made available to devices. If an issue is discovered with a particular driver, don't worry! Pause that driver deployment while continuing with the rest of the approved drivers to devices. No longer is it an all-or-nothing setting.
Optional drivers and firmware
Approve and deploy optional driver and firmware updates in addition to recommended drivers. When approved in Intune, the drivers are installed on devices without end user interaction.
Detailed reporting
Boost your monitoring and compliance goals with built-in reporting. Browse detailed reports for the status for each driver for each device, as well as the overall deployment results summary. Failure reports provide easy to understand alerts, descriptions of the cause of the error, and recommendations for remediating devices. Reports in Intune are built on the same data driving Windows Update for Business reports, integrated into your Intune console.
Windows Autopatch integration
With Autopatch, we're excited to announce that you'll be able to set all drivers to automatic or manual. To use this functionality, you need to be licensed for Windows Enterprise E3 or E5. When we add full integration with Autopatch Groups in the future, this will be configured for you automatically, aligned with your current rings, without having to change or configure anything yourself. Additionally, you can go to the underlying policy to do granular driver management when needed. Be sure to subscribe to Windows Autopatch blogs for updates to this feature coming later this year.
Stay tuned for more Windows + Intune magic
Keep an eye on the Windows IT Pro Blog for the general availability announcement soon! We're already putting together step-by-step walkthroughs on how to create and manage policies in Microsoft Intune, as well as how to use built-in reports to monitor progress and compliance.
To get ready or catch up on the journey, check out the following articles:
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